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Port Washington

Best Buy has announced it will close its store in the Grafton Commons in November.

According to a letter sent from Best Buy’s Market Human Resources Manager Brian Seifert to the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development, the electronics company will permanently close its store at 1070 N. Port Washington Rd., Grafton, on Nov. 3.

Sixty-eight employees will be impacted by the closing.

“Some employees, however, may obtain other jobs within Best Buy before that date through internal transfers to other jobs,” the letter states.

Darin and Jennifer Flannery and their 14-year-old son Jimi moved from Grafton to North Carolina three months ago for the warm weather and instead found “horrific” Hurricane Florence.

“This has been just horrific,” Jennifer Flannery said Thursday, Sept. 13, as Florence closed in on the Carolinas. “We never expected this to happen. We moved to North Carolina for the nice weather and to be near the ocean.”

The family has been staying in hotels in Greenville and Spartansburg, S.C., for more than a week with nightly rates between $250 and $450.

The new refrain at the Niederkorn Library in Port Washington might be, “Meet me under the tree.”

That’s because a recent renovation of the children’s library in the lower level of the facility included the creation of a tree that stretches from floor to ceiling and beyond, with a hand painted sky and even a not-so-secret fairy door.

The tree was sculpted by Milwaukee artist Sally Duback. It is a gift to the library in remembrance of Marge Poole, given by her granddaughters Johanna, Moira and Sophia.

A four-time felon from Milwaukee who was allegedly on his way to Port Washington to sell drugs last week instead wound up in Grafton, then in handcuffs after police found a loaded .45 caliber handgun in the car he was riding in.

Anthony B. Alexander Jr., 33, is charged in Ozaukee County Circuit Court with possession of a firearm by a felon.

Alexander, who was convicted in Milwaukee County of the same crime in 2015, is charged in Ozaukee County as a repeat offender, which means he would face additional time in prison if convicted.

Without knowing what health costs will be or how much sales tax revenue is likely to come in, Ozaukee County Administrator Jason Dzwinel Wednesday morning presented county supervisors a 2019 budget that would raise the county levy less than 2%.

The county tax rate would be just shy of $1.75 per $1,000 valuation, or about 5 cents less than last year.

Dzwinel projected the tax levy to rise $401,275 to about $20.94 million, up from the 2018 levy of $20.54 million, a 1.95% increase.

The Port Exploreum will likely reopen by the end of this week, officials said Tuesday.

The facility can’t reopen until its elevator is repaired, and the necessary parts weren’t expected to arrive until Wednesday, Sept. 19, said Wayne Chruscial, executive director of the Port Washington Historical Society, which operates the museum.

“They’ve been ordered. They just have to get here,” he said.

Unfortunately, Chruscial added, the parts are coming from the Carolinas, which were hit by Hurricane Florence.

Port Washington Fire Chief Mark Mitchell told the Police and Fire Commission on Monday that he’s having so much trouble ensuring there is a paramedic to staff the ambulance around the clock that he wants to hire as many as three full-time firefighter-paramedics.

A similar situation exists in Grafton, where Fire Chief Bill Rice brought on a full-time firefighter-paramedic in July. He is seeking to add another full-time employee in 2019 and a third in 2020, saying this is the only way to guarantee coverage.

eted the Port Washington Board of Public Works Tuesday asking what the city is going to do to prevent the future floods like the one that damaged their homes and destroyed possessions on Aug. 27.

“I’m asking, I’m begging you guys, please figure out what the problem is,” said Brad Bertler, who lives in the Lighthouse Condominiums at 415 N. Lake St. “We cannot have this problem all the time. We’ve got to get this figured out.”